Some 25,000 New Year’s Eve balloons have been inflated and will be handed out tonight. Confetti has also been test-dropped ahead of the festivities – more than a ton of the party paper will rain down on revelers at midnight.

“I hope for a happy year, also for my mother good luck with the traveling because she wanna do another trip to the U.S. She was here for her first time and really hopes that she enjoys the next year,” said Regina from Austria, who fit all of that on her tiny piece of confetti.

“Yes it was all tiny and I had to squeeze it into it and use both sides, but it worked out,” she told WCBS 880 reporter Monica Miller.

She hoped whoever caught her hopes and dreams finds love and good health in the new year.

“A happy and healthy new year, of course. That’s it. Simple,” a man named George said.

“All the disasters and the bad things that happened in 2012, we want to forget about them all. Just forget about them and move forward to 2013 and everything is going to be beautiful this coming year,” his wife Pat told 1010 WINS reporter Gary Baumgarten.

George did add that he, too, hopes for change, in particular, with the New York Jets.

“Fire everybody. Start from the top and just work your way down,” he said.

Catherine Nash of Washington told CBS 2 she’s ready for the celebration, and the cold weather.

“We are ready for it. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so we gotta do it,” Nash said.

As 2012 winds down, many are making New Year’s resolutions, and saying good riddance to the year we are leaving behind. Everything from bad memories to bank statements have been shredded.

“I’m giving up my sweet tooth because it has become a problem,” one person told CBS 2.